John Wayne flights should aim over...

John Wayne flights should aim over Irvine

The planned El Toro international airport is sitting in limbo,

while the Navy, developers and the city of Irvine conspire to try to

derail the airport. Meanwhile, noise complaints to John Wayne Airport

are on the rise (“John Wayne noise level drops,” July 31), while

airplanes are more and more taking off strangely, instead of turning

for noise abatement.

The only quiet airplane is one parked with the engines turned off.

The best way to take off from John Wayne Airport is to fly north and

make a sharp right turn over the city of Irvine. This will reduce

complaint calls from Newport Beach, until the planned El Toro

international airport opens where no one is in the noise zone, and

then all the complaint calls will stop.

DONALD NYRE

Newport Beach

City Council members seem to have conflict

Newport Beach City Council members Tod Ridgeway and Gary Adams,

and other council members who had hired Dave Ellis as their campaign

manager, should have recused themselves from voting for funding to

the Airport Working Group since Ellis was also hired as AWG’s

political consultant.

It is equally distressing and incomprehensible that these same

City Council members have refused to fund the Airport Working Group

when they need it most -- to fight the legal battle to overturn

Measure W, also referred to as The Great Land Grab. This is

particularly true since Rep. Chris Cox wasn’t able to get the JWA

settlement agreement extension added to an aviation bill, and the

Airline Transportation Assn. has indicated its intention to legally

fight any extensions to the John Wayne settlement agreement after its

expiration in 2005.

Thanks, Greenlight, for your vigilance, and for the Daily Pilot

and reporter June Casagrande for the coverage. Keep it up.

ANN WATT

Santa Ana Heights

South County won’t use its Great Park

So we’re going to have 3,400 homes in practically 3 million square

feet of commercial property. It’s going to be full of people that are

going to be traveling at the airport. It’s going to jam John Wayne.

And there has to be more flights to accommodate all the growth that’s

coming in here in Orange County and it’s going to also end up

overtaxing LAX.

For God’s sake, why couldn’t they put in the airport and fairly

distribute the noise between the north and the south? And, my God,

take a look at the parks in South County -- beautiful, huge parks.

Why would those people want to come up into El Toro to enjoy the

Great Park that is never going to be?

Finally, does anyone know who Rep. Chris Cox’s contributors

(developers) are to his campaign?

JIM THOBE

Laguna Beach

Latest El Toro plan pleases this reader

I’m absolutely thrilled with Irvine’s plan with the Navy. It means

no monstrous airport in the middle of a residential area, a plan

which should never have been considered in the first place.

ANN MERRITT

Corona del Mar